Minimum Wages Increases and Eviction Risk

We extend the debate on the benefits to increasing the minimum wage by examining the impact on expenses associated with shelter, a previously unexplored area. Our analysis uses a unique data set that tracks household rental payments. Increases in state minimum wages significantly reduce the incidence of renters defaulting on their lease contracts by 1.7 percentage points over three months, relative to similar renters who did not experience an increase in the minimum wage. This represents 10.6% fewer monthly defaults. However, this effect slowly decreases over time as landlords react to wage increases by increasing rents.

© This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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Work Title Minimum Wages Increases and Eviction Risk
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Sumit Agarwal
  2. Brent W. Ambrose
  3. Moussa Diop
Keyword
  1. minimum wage increase
  2. lease default
  3. eviction risk
  4. rental market
  5. household income
License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Elsevier BV
Publication Date May 2022
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. 10.1016/j.jue.2021.103421
Source
  1. Journal of Urban Economics
Deposited June 15, 2022

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  • Added minimum_wage_and_rent_defaults_JUE_RR2-120521-1.pdf
  • Added Creator Sumit Agarwal
  • Added Creator Brent W. Ambrose
  • Added Creator Moussa Diop
  • Published
  • Updated Work Title, Keyword Show Changes
    Work Title
    • Minimum Wages Increases and Eviction Risk
    • ! Minimum Wages Increases and Eviction Risk
    Keyword
    • minimum wage increase, lease default, eviction risk, rental market, household income
  • Updated Work Title Show Changes
    Work Title
    • ! Minimum Wages Increases and Eviction Risk
    • Minimum Wages Increases and Eviction Risk
  • Updated